Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Johnson
Editors are great and necessary. I learned a lot, all the ones I queried were nice and helpful, and the one I'm currently working with is great. I won't read a book that's not edited by a professional.
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It's funny though, I literally just bought a book of short stories (on it's way in the mail) whose sole claim to fame really is that they actually haven't been edited.
Or rather, were edited once, but now have been painstakingly restored to the author's original words (by looking at original typed drafts). And every typo correction is noted in the back in an appendix.
Indeed, I almost have a whole library (well, bookshelf) of such volumes - H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith.
I guess my point is, it should depend on the author. Some, HPL at least, carefully crafted their stuff and any editor's interference just makes it worse.
Are most the authors out there like HPL? Hell no. But you never know...and professional editing is no guarantee.
The famous plothole in The Big Sleep (which was caused by Chandler splicing together three separate stories) was never caught until it was made into a movie.
A favorite short story of mine (Omnilingual by H. Beam Piper) has an error that made it by the original magazine editor and the editor of the short story collection I have in paperback, but was caught by the PG proofing team. And I've personally noticed names of minor characters being swapped in a couple of best selling novels.
And despite that, all are well worth reading.